


Spore

by mobby123



Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29705955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mobby123/pseuds/mobby123
Summary: OC Biotinker fic.Cillian had grown up in Belfast, a city turned to rubble by the Northern Irish Troubles. Things had gone from bad to worse as the conflict saw increasing Parahuman violence and involvement in paramilitary organisations, culminating in he and his family fleeing to the United States as wartime refugees.It had been seven years since they had settled in Brockton Bay, so why did he feel as if he never escaped the war?The fic will predominately focus on a grounded and gritty take on the Worm Universe. It'll have an early focus on the gangs of Brockton Bay and how terrifying they can really be, along with a MC who has deep reservations about his powers and place as a Hero. In true Worm fashion; the world goes to shit.
Kudos: 4





	1. Inoculation 1.1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!
> 
> This story takes place in a world identical to the canon wormverse, save for the addition of a family to Brockton Bay.
> 
> Primarily using this for practice and fun, hope you all enjoy!
> 
> Author's Notes:
> 
> 1\. Constructive Feedback would be very much welcomed! This is definitely not the sort of thing I'd write normally so please weigh in with your thoughts. Feedback, criticism and suggestions are all welcome. Keep it pleasant though please.  
> 2\. I'm endeavouring to be canon compliant. I've a pretty good grasp on the worm-verse or so I'd like to think. Please let me know if you spot any discrepancies.  
> 3\. I'm not a biologist, immunologist or any other logist. As you might have guessed by the title, there'll be lots of talk about microscopic nasties in the story that I cannot guarantee will be accurate. I'll do my due diligence however. If any of you with the aforementioned relevant expertise(s) want to weigh in/yell at me/suggest ideas then please do so!  
> 4\. None of the views within this story reflect my own. I'm sure that's assumed given the setting but it's better safe than sorry. Moral/Political debates are all good, just play nice.
> 
> This is also being posted over on Space Battles under the same name if you'd prefer to read it there.

‘Inoculation, germination, expansion.’

He moves, slowly. His claw reaches out, pushing through debris. Lights flicker – sulphur-yellow, intermittent like a failing heartbeat.

‘Hypalation, formation’

He does not want to speak. His lips move, unbidden, rehearsing well travelled paths, stabilising his nervous system. The steps have power – he knows this – but still he does not want to do it.

‘Maturation.’

He pushes himself free of the piles of debris, the heaps of rended flesh and shattered stone. His feet, rotten and twisted, find purchase and push back. He drags himself out of the ruins, his breath wheezing through phlegm ridden lungs.

‘Apotheosis.’

That is the perfect state, the one that signifies the accomplishment and the end, but also the conception and then the process. It gives him strength, though he does not wish it to. It has always given him strength, even before the metamorphosis, and he dimly remembers this. Now, it is just a habit. So many things are just habits now.

He gets back to his feet. Detritus sheds from his back, clattering on the cracked tiles beneath. Alarms are sounding from somewhere, muffled and broken. Their shrill cries reduced to a broken, pitiful whining. A length of power cable as thick as a man’s torso hangs from the roof, glittering with a weak halo of sparks.

He feels lighter than he should. His old armour should be heavy. It is crusted with the patina of age, thickened and scabbed with boils and laced with glistening fungal colonies.The tinker-tech that once powered it was long-since defunct. It brings back memories, as he looks it over. Bittersweet. Mostly bitter.

He staggers over to a security terminal and sees its wretched operator fused to its station, its body becoming one with the metal of the tinker-tech device over its months spent in constant vigil. It’s dead now, truly this time, the last strobes of its cortex blown out... which is probably for the best. Life as one of his favoured was a noble calling but not one that was kind to the senses or the soul.

He presses fat fingers to the overripe shoulder of the finally deceased corpse, gently, almost reverently guiding the foetid husk to the grime encrusted floor that would serve as its resting place for the significant future. He could already sense the unique blend of- no. Not now. Priorities. He needed to focus on the task at hand. Taking its place, he summons the information he needs, status symbols and video feeds flitting across grease-smeared screens.

He sees that the citadel lives…. Barely. He sees that Trisagion’s enemies are no longer in view. They were safe. For now. But the truce had been broken, and death begets death. He wonders how much he aided the fortress and its occupants, or if this is just one more sign that things are running away from him. But he was a better man now, of that he had no doubt. A wiser man. He used to be his own worst enemy. Now he was everyone else's.

‘Colm,’ he calls wetly into his comms and gets nothing but the creaking of a shattered home back.

Others are beginning to stir now. He sees one of his kindred emerge from under a sagging wooden beam, eyes glowing radioactive green in the dark. He sees a favoured twitch back into life, its bloated and bulbous stomach spilling across a table. He sees a plagueling plop down from a flaming cluster of ceiling. It shrieks as it splats onto the floor, and he gathers it up carefully. It coos at him, and then nuzzles into the armoured crutch of his elbow, snickering needle-teeth.

He is beginning to remember now. He is beginning to piece things together again. Is he slower now than he once was? The plagueling starts to lick the viscous blood from his cracked armour.  
Of course he’s slower. Everything is slowing down, congested, like running through water. That’s the Gift, of course. That’s one of the great objectives.

The Archimandrite turns on his heels, patting the plagueling absentmindedly.

‘Lights, if you please,’ he grunts. ‘Lets get us moving.’ The fortress responds. Servants stagger out of the dark, pull themselves up from behind half-melted walls, wipe sweat and mucus from their eyes. Around them, Trisagion starts to come to life. It’s hard to kill a fortress like this.

It’s hard to kill any of them.

‘Inoculation,’ he mutters, starting again.

**THREE YEARS EARLIER**

Cillian scraped the last auburn hairs from the side of his jaw and washed the razor off in the sink. Then he wiped it on the towel, closed it and placed it carefully back in its container. Wouldn’t do to go cutting the family by being careless. He had already gotten in trouble for that once before.

He wiped his face, and then – his favourite part of the day – gazed at himself in the mirror. It was a good one, newly installed and doubtlessly inordinately expensive. Definitely his mother’s choice. Maybe Colm had broken the last one.That had to be, what, the third this month? An oval of bright, smooth glass in a frame of lavishly-carved dark wood. A fitting surround for such a handsome lad as the one gazing happily back at him.

Honestly, handsome hardly did himself justice. ‘You’re quite the looker aren’t you?’ Cillian said to himself, smiling as he ran his fingers over the smooth skin of his jaw. And what a jaw it was. He had often been told it was his best feature, not that there was anything whatever wrong with the rest of him. He turned to the right, then to the left, in order to admire that wonderful chin of his. Not too heavy, not crude, but not too light either, not womanly or weak. A man’s jaw, no doubt, with the slightest cleft in the chin, speaking of strength and authority, but sensitive and thoughtful too. Had there ever been a jaw like it? Perhaps some model or hero once had one almost as fine. Maybe Legend’s could almost compare. Almost. It was a noble jaw, that much was clear. It must have come from his mother’s side of the family, Cillian supposed. His father had a rather weak chin.

His jaw aside, the rest of him still had some growing up left to do. He stood at the upper end of five foot, proudly insisting he was 5’11 despite his friends always decrying that he barely scraped 5’9. He was hoping that a growth spurt was lurking around the corner but the waning half of his 16th year, he was beginning to lose hope of a miraculous increase in verticality. His cheeks too, still had lingering traces of boyishness. He had nice cheekbones alright, they were just more hidden than he’d like them to be. A smattering of freckles, dark green eyes and a shock of red hair completed the look. Auburn, he insisted. Not ginger.

His self-admiring reverie was interrupted by a cacophonous banging on the bathroom door accompanied by various admonishing cries that primarily consisted of ‘wee shit’, ‘hogging the bathroom’ and ‘feckin’ princess’ used interchangeably.  
Well, he supposed. All good things must come to an end. His small period of enjoyment came crashing to an abrupt halt in the form of his mother, who had undoubtedly slept in and was now running late for work.

Her powers took a lot out of her as she so often proclaimed, they required a ridiculous amount of sleep to recuperate from. Late night shifts and high energy demands coalesced in the form of her beating on the door in a frenzy, desperately trying to make up for lost time. The usual morning routine in their household.

‘Hell’ he wondered absentmindedly ‘What does it matter if her hair isn’t washed, she’ll just shove it into a helmet anyways.’

Not that he’d ever dream of saying that out loud. He wasn’t being abused or anything of the sort. No this was a different fear. A primal fear. The deep-rooted terror that lurked in every teen’s heart that only emerged at the thought of their mother screaming their full name in that tone of voice. No, it was better not to test her while she was stressed. Their usual banter could wait.

Groaning reluctantly, he unlocked the bathroom door, narrowly avoiding the human missile that was his mother who all but sprinted into the now vacated room, and went about the rest of his morning preparations. He too now, was running fashionably late. He had spent too much time gawking in the mirror by the looks of it. He dressed himself(stylishly but not enough to make himself seem like he tried too hard), made his bed (flung his duvet over the bed so it landed just neatly enough that his mother wouldn’t chastise him), grabbed his schoolbag (full of incomplete homework) and ran down the stairs.

His father was waiting for him downstairs wearing an expression that managed to be both bemused and stern at the same time.

‘Don’t you have somewhere to be Cillian? Your brother has been waiting for you for the last ten minutes.’ His words were stern but his voice was kindly and the tone full of laughter. His thick Cork accent only added to the effect, unapologetically unchanged despite their immigration to the states all those years back. The rest of them had picked up some form of slang or American twang to their voice but not his father. Resolute in his rural Irish accent as he was in all things.

It was hard to reconcile Niall Brady, the stern but loving figure in front of him with Shepherd; the hero that organised the triage of entire cities during and after Endbringer attacks. The man who could bring people back from the dead in some cases. The man who never smiled. The Bay’s foremost healer. Well he was until that Dallon weirdo came onto the scene, but the less said about her the better.

Shovelling a slice of toast into his mouth while struggling to don a jacket at the same time Cillian managed to grunt out a pleading ‘Yeah well if you just let me get a car then we wouldn’t have to wal-’”

He was cut off with a retort that was far less well-humoured than the last ‘Aye? After what you did to the last car you had? Not a chance in hell. You and your brother are walking until I say otherwise. Maybe it’ll finally drill some humility or good sense into that thick skull of yours Cillian’

He grimaced. He was never going to fucking live that one down. Muttering some half-hearted protestations he jogged to the door to find his brother already waiting for him. They really did look like a mirror image of each other, only that Colm was younger, more spindly, shorter and less handsome. Maybe it was one of those circus mirrors?

He was losing track of this metaphor rapidly.

He was met at the door with typical brotherly camaraderie.

‘Took your sweet time’ chirped the little shit.

‘Piss off’ he retorted eloquently as they burst out the door in a hurry, quickly falling into a comfortable silence that was only broken by the sounds of their slightly laboured breathing and the incessant honking of horns in the distance.

He was reminded as they half-jogged, half-walked to school that Brockton Bay was well and truly a shithole of the highest magnitude. There seemed to be an oppressive pallor about the place, more than the dull November morning could explain. There was always a campaign or two running to ‘Save the Bay’ or to ‘Clean up the Streets.’ All of them were pointless, if you asked him. Cillian knew a thing or two about disease and he could tell that the Bay was rotten to the core. No point amputating a limb when the infection was already spread throughout the body. There was something sick about the city, something he couldn’t place.

‘Well’ he mused idly ‘I suppose you can’t polish a turd. A shit will always smell like shite.’

It was ironic, he thought, that they ended up here. They ran from Ireland, back when things were going from awful to worse. Belfast had always been bad but with more and more people triggering; The Troubles had turned into even more of a bloodbath. As if that were somehow possible. You know it was bad when people looked back at car bombs and masked men with assault rifles as the good old days.

Yet somehow, they ended up here. Not in Boston with all the other Irish. Not in DC or New York. No, of course not. The bay needed a healer and Dad obliged them. Well, maybe anything seemed appealing compared after what happened. Memories threatened to resurge, pressing at the walls of his mind. He gritted his teeth, desperately trying to keep them at bay. He should think about something else. Anything else. Not about that night, not aga-

‘Cillian’ Colm whispered in a low voice, blessedly snapping him out of his spiralling thoughts. ‘The alleyway, something’s happening’

His head jerked up, he was a fucking idiot. They were approaching the peripheries of the dock, an area where Empire and ABB territory merged yet he was lost in a daydream. Idiot. Idiot!. That meant gang members, it always did. They had to be seen to protect their turf, especially from encroaching rivals.

The pair were normally safe from the 88. The two of them were school kids really, the most valuable thing they’d have on them are schoolbooks. Maybe a laptop some days. They were white too, which helped matters immensely. Only problem was, they weren’t the right sort of white. The empire was far from a monolith. Some Nazis only cared about keeping the ABB at bay, some about the colour of your skin, others were more extreme. If that were even possible. The Ku Klux Klan was almost as Anti-Catholic as it was Anti-Black for a while. The second one anyways, it was a while since he did research on the subject of racist bastards. The ABB were another story. Worse in some ways. It was hard to tell the facts from the rumours these days. Especially when you lived in a white neighbourhood.

Cillian had gotten roughed up a few times on his way back from school by some empire goons. Nothing serious. A few punches, a couple of slurs. Nothing he wasn’t used to from Belfast. Some bruises and a bloody nose at worst. His pride had always smarted the most. They never touched Colm, he was too young, even for the scum. His Dad would always heal him up afterwards, a grim set to his jaw. The 88 would coincidentally experience a crackdown from the PRT and Protectorate anytime that happened. Funny that.

His attention focused on the alleyway at last. Five thugs. Skinheads and buzzcuts aplenty. Grunts, if Cillian had ever seen them. Nothing unusual ther- and then he saw it. Him, rather. He recognised the lad from school. A grade or two below him maybe? He was Indian, or was it Pakistani? Nepali? He didn’t know. Didn’t really care either. He had a name that was on the tip of Cillian’s tongue. Salmon? Salman? Salim? Something of the sort.

Cillian let out a low whistle as the kicks began to rain into the poor boy from all over. Impacting again and again into his stomach, backs, legs, even one or two to the head. Each one was met by a dull thud and a sickening whimper of pain.  
‘Poor Bastard.’ Cillian muttered ‘We should move though, quickly, we don’t want them to think we witnessed it.’

Colm looked shocked, his mouth flapping up and down like a fish for a few seconds before regaining control of his senses. ‘What do you mean move on?’ he whispered with a passionate fervor that only idealistic idiots or the very young could manage. ‘We have to help him, we can’t just leave him here!’

‘We can and we will. C’mon, get walking’ Cillian retorted, already striding away.

‘Cillian we have powers! We have to do something’ Colm protested, tears beginning to well in his eyes.

Cillian wheeled around fully then, anger rising up and settling somewhere dangerous, somewhere close to his sternum and flushing his cheeks a blotchy red. ‘You have powers, you little shit, not me! And what are you going to do, turn into a fucking crab again? You might be tough but they could have knives. Guns for all we know! C’mon, we can call the police when we’re a few streets away if you want.’

The tears were flowing now, they started small but quickly developed into desperate racking sobs. Each word sounded a struggle, snatched hysterically from between gasps of breaths. He always got like this when you mentioned his power. The anger would come later. Another broken mirror in the house tonight.

‘Cillian stop with the bullshit, you got them with the rest of us! You showed me once, with the dog remember?’ Colm stared up earnestly, piteously, pleading. Tears still brimming ‘You can help him. I know you can’

Memories assaulted him then. No walls were strong enough to stop them this time. A trigger event, he now knew they were called. Armed men. Masks. Begging, shouting, bargaining. Desperation. Desperation, fear and knowing deep down this was all his fault. Him and his stupid mouth. There was no solution. He had to find one but there was none. It was his fault. It was all his fault. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He recognised one of them. Union jack. Cleaver. Shankill, they called him. Tall, strong, handsome even. His eyes were dead though. Like a shark’s. Cillian had seen him on the news. His family were going to be butchered just like all the others. It was all his fault.

He tore himself away from the memory before it could plague him further. Before the memories of an empty grave, an empty seat at the dinner table and empty smiles began. Before he bungled everything. Before he tried to be a hero and got her killed.

His shoulders sagged then, the fight gone out of him. There was no anger in his words this time around, just a sad resignation. ‘Please Colm, let’s go to school. We can call Mom if you want. You know how fast she is, she’ll be here in minutes. Maybe Velocity is on duty, who knows? C’mon. Please bud.’

His younger brother stared at him for a few dangerous seconds longer before the tension broke and he stormed past Cillian. In the direction of the school. Nobody was dying today.

He felt shame flood him despite it all. He wasn’t a great older brother, he knew that. Wasn’t a good example. He wasn’t brave or strong. He wasn’t particularly smart either. He teased his younger brother more than he helped or inspired him. That wasn’t even the worst of it. Colm was right, he knew. His parents knew it. He reckoned the Protectorate knew it too. He had powers. The words and information that barraged him when he let his guard down. But he wasn’t a good man. Wasn’t a hero. It hadn’t gone well the time he tried. The world was full of good men. They're all decomposing in a ditch somewhere. The bay wasn’t kind to heroes, even if you had powers. They’d get you eventually. You might win in the moment. You might do some good a couple of times. You might even last years. But you’ll slip up eventually and it’ll backfire. Hell, you might do everything right and it could still go wrong.

Then you’re just another corpse floating in the Bay.

You have to be realistic about these things.

They eventually reached Winslow, Colm only turning around to mutter a frosty ‘You’re a coward Cillian.’ in his direction. It hurt. He was right though. They both knew it. Then his younger brother was gone. Lost in the maze of steel lockers and cracked concrete that was Winslow. They could attend Arcadia by all rights. They could live in a nicer neighbourhood in a bigger house where they didn’t have to share a single bathroom with a shower either. Their Dad was as stubborn in this as he was in all things. He didn’t want to raise a ‘a bunch of pampered wee pricks’ as he so eloquently put it. It’s why Cillian didn’t get another car after the previous incident. It’s why they had been walking for the last two months despite easily having the money for another. So really it was his father’s fault that this entire mess happened toda-

He sighed frustratedly. That line of thinking was horseshit and he knew it too. It was probably safer as well. Who expected two of the Bay’s most famous heroes to be living in this part of Brockton. Better to be safe than sorry. Unspoken rules or not.

Gritting his teeth he looked up at what awaited him. He was a popular enough guy. Had plenty of friends and no real enemies. An extrovert through and through. Crowds however, crowds were difficult. Small ones were fine but hundreds of people crammed into tight hallways? He could keep a grip on his power for the most part but with that many people, information began to slip through the cracks. He sighed, there was nothing else for it. He was even a bit late, maybe it would be quiet. Maybe people would be in the classrooms by now?

It wasn’t and they weren’t, as it turns out. He pushed his way through the roiling mass of bodies, cheap deodorant and hormones that made up the student body of Winslow High. It wasn’t long before he began to sense them.

Elevated levels of E-coli in that girl with the pink hair. She was going to shit herself silly in a few hours.

He brushed past two scraggly looking teens who were ‘inconspicuously’ finishing off a drug deal. He could report it. He could talk to them. He could do a hundred things to try and help. He wouldn’t though. They were Merchants by the look of it. They weren’t above going after high-schoolers. You have to be realistic about these things.

Herpes Simplex on an Asian guy with ABB colours. A chronic case of Cold Sores that would only get worse. He wasn’t getting any girls regardless of how much street cred he racked up.

Some poor scrawny bitch being bullied by a trio of far more attractive girls. He could report it, he knew. He could intervene. Hell, he could even distract them, if nothing else. He recognised the redhead. Emma, he recalled her name as being. Some of the guys had taken note of her already despite her being a year or two younger. She was pretty, he had to admit. If he stepped in, she’d undoubtedly turn those same guys against him. Some guys his age would do a lot to win over a pretty girl. No. You have to be realistic about these things. Head down. Keep walking.

Five cases of an influenza strain he hadn’t seen before. Doesn’t seem particularly virulent. Was going to take a few people out of classes though. He could see the virus bursting through the air, spread by a girl who was too slow to catch her sneeze.

He could stop it. Stop people getting sick. He’d be loved, he knew he would. Another healer? The son of Shepherd? It would be a dream come true to the people of the world. Somebody who could control diseases at a whim?

He wondered how long it would take for someone to realise that if he could stop them, he could also spread them. Change them. Dangerous. A dangerous line of thought, that was. One he usually buried as far down as he could. That wasn’t even the least of it either. His father had talked about kill orders. He knew there was one with his name on it if his powers were ever found out. Biotinkers rarely had a happy ending.

A case of HIV. That was unusual. He hadn’t seen a case around the school for a couple of months. He wondered absently if it would spread.

Strep throat, mononucleosis and the common cold were commonplace. Nothing unusual, especially for their demographic. He felt something new too, someone with a skin condition he hadn’t seen before. He bet it was painful. He bet it looked even worse than it felt.

He could fix it.

He wouldn’t though.

Eventually he felt a familiar patch of Alternaria on the ceiling that heralded he had nearly reached his destination. He was particularly fond of mould. It didn’t rely on humans to survive. Didn’t kill or hurt in order to subsist. It often just found some damp, unpleasant corner to live in and eke out its life. They had a lot in common. He and mould. Reckon he was a great deal prettier though. Smelled better too.

He entered the classroom and slumped into his chair. The lads, his friends, hadn’t arrived yet. That meant he was left to his own thoughts for a few minutes. He couldn’t get that boy’s face out of his mind. Looking at them desperately. Reaching out towards them. Calling to them for help. Calling to him for help.

Cillian let out a sigh. It was going to be a long day.

As the last stragglers (his friends included) arrived, he came to a realisation.

He hadn’t even made that phone call in the end.


	2. Inoculation 1.2

**Chapter 2 - Inoculation 1.2**

NOW

Colm gets to his knees, snarling. A gun-crewman staggers over to him, perhaps trying to help him. This is a conceit, and he shoves the emaciated human into the wall, hears the faint snap of something osseous breaking. Then he’s turning, drawing himself up to his full height. Somewhere around 11 feet, when he stretched out fully. The metamorphosis had been kind to him.

The gunnery chamber yawns away from him, its roof lost in dark clouds, draped with rotting cables like spider threads. Something big has detonated, hard enough to fry Trisagion’s primary power generator. The fortress is a big, bulky beast, so the damage must have been catastrophic…. And close too, perhaps. Had to be a heavy hitter who did that. He wondered who it could have been to land the strike. It was hard to know who was still alive these days, after all.

He slaps the side of his helm, then again, hard enough to knock some sense back into his skull. His mood is dark, and he wonders if the explosion was somehow his failure – if so, that’ll be more fodder for Cillian. For the Archimandrite, as he styled himself now.

The gun gangs are coming back to life. Several dozen lie in the murk of the chamber, limbs severed or rib cages smashed. The bioluminescent lights are coming back into effect now. Floating down from somewhere. Emitted as spores from some unseen fungus.

The nearest gun barrel – a two-hundred metre long steel howitzer – rears up through the miasma towards its firing port. Recoil columns splay out, lodged deep into the substructure. Much of the weapon is still made of black metal, a metre and a half thick at its thinnest point, crushingly heavy. Tinker-tech through and through. Though it fired no regular shells, after all. Only the edges show creeping evidence of the biological – strands of hair-thin follicles worming away, glacially slowly. They’ll get there in the end, consuming the inorganic and replacing it with the tougher stuff of sinew and cord. The Dallon bitch had seen to that. Everything would be subsumed in the end. This one one of the Gifts, as he brother was so wont to preach.

Ten metres away, the Gunnery Captain regains his feet. He’s one of the more senior of the Favoured, and something like a uniform still clings to his hefty frame. His skin is white-grey and boils cluster at his neckline, but he might even pass for human-normal in some of the grimier slums of the world.

Colm looks into his smeary helmet visor, then down the long rows of artillery.

‘What’s the damage?’ he growls.

‘Significant,’ the Captain whispers. He always whispers now – some wasting Gift in his vocal cords, probably. Colm didn’t keep track of the normals much anymore. It was just the capes that mattered. ‘It will take time.’

Colm grunts. He can smell copper, mingled with heavier aromas. Trisagion is bleeding somewhere.

‘Did you get a salvo off?’ he asks.

The Captain looks at him. His black-in-black eyes are unblinking. ‘Five, my lord.’

‘Five.’

‘Rather proud of the crews, lord.’

Colm grunts again. ‘Not good enough, though, was it?’ he snarls, and stalks out towards the exit aperture. His boots suck at the soft fleshy stuff on the deck – the permanent soup of swill that bubbles and ferments in every crevice. ‘I’ll be back in an hour. Any guns still out of action and I’ll flay the lot of you. Get it done. We have a war to fight.’

**THEN - THREE YEARS AGO**

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

Tick. Tock.

What was it with this school and having a clock in every room? Digital clocks were cheap, why did they insist on installing the noisiest analog ones around. Dragon made mech-suits. Kid Win had a hoverboard. Armsmaster… well he wasn’t actually sure what Armsmaster did. He had a halberd, right? He and Dad didn’t get along too well. Dad rarely got along with people he respected though.

Tick. Tock.

Regardless, they were living in an age of technological wonders. A time where anything could feasibly be made. For a while, space travel was even within our reach. The Simurgh had put an end to that though.

Tick. Tock.

Such marvels. Such wonders.

Tick. Tock.

But Winslow couldn’t even get some proper fucking clocks.

Tick. Tock.

Cillian let out a groan and let his forehead flop onto his arms, his nose and cheek squishing into the panelling of his cheap wooden desk. It wasn’t hygienic. He didn’t care.

The continued tick-tocking of the clock seemed to taunt him.

Bastard.

He opened his eyes to see his mate Josh giving him a typical shit-eating grin. A mischievous smile, a playful one even. Cillian knew he didn’t mean anything malicious by it. His friend probably thought he was just reacting badly to Mr. Quinlan’s criminally tedious maths class. Cillian couldn’t care less about proving that the square root of 2 was an irrational number. He knew better. All numbers were irrational. He didn’t need to prove it either. None of it made sense.

Still, equations and Quinley’s monotone droning were the last thing on his mind. He was still replaying a scene out over and over in his head. The Indian kid being beaten in a filthy alley. His face planted in some indescribable filth. Grown men kicking and stomping.

The violence wasn’t the problem. Cillian had seen plenty of it back in Belfast. People beaten within an inch of their life for having the wrong name in the wrong area. He had first seen someone die when he was six. Bullets spraying through the metal of a Toyota like it was papier-mâché. Some Dad dropped his daughter off to school for the last time, he didn’t know much else about it. Was the dead man a militant? Had he gotten on the wrong side of the paramilitaries? Of a cape? Of the government? He didn’t really care. You learned quickly to stop caring. Questions caused trouble. He had learned that the hard way.

What got to him was the boy’s eyes. Dark brown. Wide. Panicked. Desperate. Looking straight into his. Calling for help. Begging for help, really.

It was harder to ignore that. A body on the street was one thing. A stranger in a car too. But some lad asking you and you alone to help him? To save him? That stung a bit more. A lot more.

He recalled a quote, one probably plastered on one of the various cheap motivational posters hung around the school. “Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.” A quote from Voltaire maybe? Although he didn’t try too hard to remember, truth be told. The man was dead for centuries, Cillian doubted he would care if he didn’t get his due credit.

Besides, what was he to do? Take on the most powerful gang in the bay? Empire 88. The Kaiserreich, some called it. Their foot soldiers were scary enough as it was. Not a patch on the battle-hardened killers that roamed the alleys and streets of Belfast, but they weren’t pushovers either. It was their biggest advantage over the ABB in Cillian’s opinion. What kept the Asians moving? Fear, mostly. Fear of Lung, the Dragon of Kyushu. Maybe greed or ambition in some cases. Hell, perhaps some even bought into the whole pan-asian thing, he wasn’t sure.

The Empire though? Those mongrels were a different story. Fill a man with hate, fill him with fanaticism and he’ll do the work of three men without it. Lies and a creed were a more effective collar than any amount of intimidation or coercion. Proof is boring. Proof is tiresome. Proof is an irrelevance. People would far rather be handed an easy lie than search for a difficult truth, especially if it suits their own purposes. Blame the immigrants, blame your neighbours, blame the blacks, the queers or the muslims. People needed someone to blame for the state of the Bay or for the state of their lives. Anyone but themselves of course. Lies were easy. He knew quite a bit about lying to himself, after all.

That wasn’t even getting into the Cape imbalance of the two sides. It was miraculous that the ABB managed to not only hold their ground against the Empire but even managed to eke out a victory here or there. Two capes versus up to fifteen and they still managed to hold the line. The Oni and the Dragon were a formidable team. A terrifying team, if he was to be honest with himself. He’d probably pisss himself if he had to fight either of them.

Hell, he’d probably piss himself if he even had to fight someone like Othala.

Capes were dangerous. He knew that first hand. Push any of them far enough and they’ll snap. Even if their powers seemed harmless.

He was snapped from his meandering introspection by the sounds of binders snapping shut, text and notebooks being slammed closed, chairs screeching on cheap tile and the rising chuckles from the direction of his friends as they spotted his bewildered expression. Seems that Quinley had finally blessed them all by shutting up for the day, the leathery old fool. Cillian grimaced down at his empty notebook. He hadn’t written a number down during the entire class. He’d have to attempt charming one of the girls into sharing their notes. He doubted it would work. He was getting a bit predictable that way.

As they made their way into the myriad of hallways that made up Winslow’s circulatory system, Cillian’s mind was blessedly free of information about germs and other nasties. He was getting a hold over his power again. For now, at least.

He still couldn’t shake the image of that boy though.

No. He couldn’t do anything for the lad now. The damage was already done. The kid was already beaten black and blue no doubt. What was he to do? He couldn’t get embroiled in a gang war. He couldn’t take on 15 capes by himself. Hell, he could barely take on some mooks he reckoned. His wasn’t a power suited for combat after all. He’d get beaten, knifed or shot. Maybe a combination of the three. Then he’d just be another corpse floating in the Bay. You have to be realistic about these things.

You just have to be realistic about these things.

Then why was he already planning his attack?


	3. Inoculation 1.3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: The 'Now' sections of the story will continue to make up the first half of each chapter for the first arc of the story. Once the arc ends and we reach a suitable cliff-hanger in both timelines, the story will revert entirely to the 'Then' and we can see just how the hell Cillian ends up where he does.
> 
> As a forewarning, this 'Now' section is particularly gross. Maybe don't eat a sandwich while reading or anything of the sort.

**Chapter 3 - Inoculation 1.3**

**Now**

The Archimandrite heads down from the heart. As he goes, more bioluminescent lights flicker into existence. Fungal spores hanging thick in the air. A grinding hum breaks out erratically from under the blackened floor-plates. Drones – the name they still give to the menagerie of brain-altered monsters who man the lower-level functions of the living fortress – scuttle and lurch back into life. Some are almost human shaped, with two legs and two arms, and the head they were born with. Most are not. Some are like insects, while others have been almost entirely swallowed into the embrace of the corridor walls as the fortress transformed from metal to flesh, their dried skin fusing with arteries and power cables, until all that remains is a half-glimpsed face. Those faces gape stupidly as The Archimandrite passes, some vestigial response making their jaws twitch.

There was a time, The Archimandrite thinks idly, that life and death were clearly delineated things. As separate as oil and water. The human body would persist for a while, discrete from its fellows, before expiring and returning to the earth. Now, though, every possible shade between the states of living and dying has been exploited. Would continue to be exploited. They needed to survive, after all. After what happened. Half of his devout are, to all intents and purposes, semi-dead, or maybe semi-alive, their required service sustained by amalgams of tinker biotech and foundations that the metamorphosis created.

He glances at one of the buried Drone faces. It has no eyes, no nose, just an open mouth crammed full of wires and cords. Its lower lip spasms. The Archimandrite wonders if it can detect his presence. He wonders what purpose it even serves. He reaches out and gently cups its withered cheek.

He could help it.

He wouldn’t though.

Then he’s moving again. There’s no use pondering these things too deeply. It’s all part of the great panoply, the infinite variety that he serves and seeks to propagate. In another reality, he might have had the leisure to study these creatures, to see just how far the boundaries of decay and resilience can be taken before the parameters snap, but that is not, of course, his calling. Not anymore. The Prophetess had seen to that.

He works his way down a long spiral stair that appears to be made of roiling, heaving flesh, wheezing as he goes. His lungs are half full of fluid, and he cannot help but think it a poor Gift. Then again, he has thought other Gifts were poor in the past, only to discover their genius much later. It always worked out in the end. He had long ceased purging them from his body.

"Forgive me my doubts, little one" he says, speaking softly to the Plagueling at his elbow. His only answer was gleeful giggling and the sounds of snickering needle teeth. That counted as forgiveness… probably. Nilbog’s influence could never quite be escaped, it seemed.

He reaches his destination. He is a long way down now, buried within the folded spine of Trisagion’s central chamber-core. It smells rich here, like old soil. He sees pale worms wriggling through the mouldering metalwork, each barely longer than his fingernail. They glow. They have many eyes. And long teeth. Why does a worm need teeth?

He’s doing it again. Too curious – that’s always been his problem.

A door stands before him. It is made of wood. The beams are rotten and pockmarked with a sieve of beetle holes, and it all smells deeply of rust and mould. Corroding iron bars and hinges creak as the door opens, letting a curtain of deep-green miasma roll across the threshold. He steps inside and enters a dank chamber of mists and pungent putrescence.

Tables, all of them hewn from thick beams of the same rotten wood, groan under the weight of age-spotted books. Candles flicker in their holders, struggling to stay alight against the humidity. How quaint. Many pairs of tiny eyes blink from the shadows, red and vicious. Clocks tick, archaic mechanisms grind, and a cogwheel turns slowly against the domed ceiling. He didn’t recall Trisagion ever relying on such mundane machinery. Ah well, it was best not to question these things. The beast had a mind of its own sometimes.

"Were you damaged?" The Archimandrite asks.

A figure swivels in the murk, his face partly hidden by a thick cowl. Under those shadows pulses the evidence of many Gifts – boils, buboes, raised veins that throb with black fluid. A far cry from the well-tailored business man he once was.

"No, not much," the Number Man replies, greeting The Archimandrite with a nod. "Too far down, here. But you took a beating up there, yes? An explosion of that size means that at the minimum, 8 tertiary generators would have to be compromised at once. Given their distance from the source of the explosion, I find it unlikely that a blast managed to detonate them simultaneously. Infiltration is possible but inordinately unlikely. The secondary reactors are buried too far in the bowels to be struck from above, leading me to believe there is a 99.4334% chance that the primary heart has been ruptured. That must have taken great force. "

The Archimandrite smiles wryly. "We are still alive. Or what passes for it."

He looks around. He breathes in the rich air, and sees the many Plaguelings squatting on high shelves. They grin back at him, chittering and belching. He would never escape Nilbog.

"This one took a fall. Perhaps you will take a look." He hands his charge to the Number Man, who lifts the doughy bag of flesh up to the flickering light and turns it over in his pustule-ridden hands.

"So I see," the thinker murmurs to the plagueling. "Perhaps stay here a while. You can assist me with my work."

He reaches into a bag and pulls out something meaty with an eyelash still attached, before feeding it to the diminutive monster. It gurgles delightedly and hops up to the shelf with the rest of them, where a chattering tussle breaks out amongst the monsters. He suppressed yet another intrusive thought about the God-King of Ellisburg.

"Trisagion must be wounded," the Number Man observes, reaching for a taper to light more candles. Archaic compared to his once sterile and modern office. "I feel it even in these bowels."

"It will recover, it always does." The Archimandrite says resolutely.

"What happened?"

"I do not know." The Archimandrite leans against a heavy pile of books – grimoires and ledgers, some open to reveal webs of inked diagrams and tables. "I thought we had a fight on our hands. They landed a few raiding parties. Machines and Capes alike. But we matched them well and none found what they were seeking for. Perhaps stealth was their objective. I know not. Then the explosion." He shook his head. "The truth will emerge in time."

The Number Man reaches up to scratch his chin. Something pops, and his fingers glisten. "Where does it leave us?"

"A long way from where we need to be with our fortress wounded. The deadline soon approaches."

The Number Man pauses, and the abacus at his belt clinks. "Dangerous."

"No more so than normal," says the Archimandrite in return. "Run the numbers, will you?"

"If you want."

"I need to trust a little more."

The Number Man gives him a severe look. "You do, Archimandrite. You must trust in the plan."

"All I have left, I think, sometimes."

"It’s all beginning. I told you that. When the scales tip. You could be happier about it. It is you who put this all in motion, after all."

The Archimandrite chews at his lip. He can taste blood in his mouth, a thick soup made tangy by acid and gut-rot. "Which way do they tip, though, eh?" he ruminates, running a finger down the spine of the nearest book. "We could be sliding down the wrong path. We have done it before. You even more times than I."

The Number Man snorts unapologetically, and shoots him an exasperated, though oddly affectionate, glance. "There are creatures in the sea, aquatic hunters and leviathans, that are required to move at all times, or they die. That is our model. If we stay stationary, we will die. The next attack will strike true. Or Trisagion will kill you. Or your brother will, or even she may come for your hide if she gathers her strength. If you pause here, if you think, if you hesitate, this will be the end of your story. The numbers do not lie."

The Archimandrite does not smile. "You’ve been saying the same thing to me for months now."

"This month, then, I hope you will listen."

The Archimandrite shrugs. His upper lip twitches, catching on the corroded flecks of his inner helm. He cannot take the helmet off anymore. He mourns the memory of a sharp jawline and sparkling eyes for a moment. He mourned the boy he once was. His eyes were green. He could not remember the last time he had seen those eyes. He wondered when he stopped caring. Though maybe it was a mercy that he could no longer witness the changes wrought to his person. He no longer has a body and tinkertech suit, but an increasingly intimate meld of the two. That is one of the many hundred reasons he is so hard to kill – his fusion with his protection is so much more complete than that he enjoyed as a mortal.

"Run the numbers," he says.

"They can only tell you so much," says the Number Man. That would be considered blasphemy from the man he once was.

"Better than nothing at all."

The Archimandrite looks up at the plagueling, now snoring contentedly, with flecks of skin and keratin on its rolling stomach. He can smell the decay, the falling away of the parchment, the slow collapse of the floor beneath and the roof above.

"I need to know," he says, turning away from the books and the mould. "Do this for me, please."

"Of course," says the Number Man, watching him go. "Whatever you want."

**Then**

Gold was overrated Cillian reckoned. Sure it was shiny. Didn’t degrade or rust much either. But what was it good for, really? Probably a lot of useless things that he didn’t care all that much about. Mould however, mould was something else. He reckoned it was one of the most versatile substances in the world. Fungi could do a lot of things, with the right hand to craft it. He could even neutralise the smell thankfully. The schoolbag full of mould staring back at him would have let off a stench strong enough to kill God himself if he couldn’t.

It felt strange, after all this time, to be experimenting with his power. It came flooding back to him. Like slipping on an old pair of boots or hopping onto a familiar bike. You couldn’t really forget it. You just realised how much you missed it. Cillian almost managed to forget how much it terrified him too.

He was still in a bit of a daze he reckoned. A tad hysterical maybe. He was actually doing this. It made no sense. None at all. He could feel his arms shaking and he hadn’t even gotten near his target yet! What was he doing here? How did the notion of heroism worm its way into his head despite all his effort?

The memory of frightened brown eyes quickly proved an answer.

His day had been a strange one, truth be told. For once was thankful that Winslow was such a shithole. Underfunded facilities and underpaid staff were a recipe for negligence. It had mould and growths aplenty, especially in the unhygienic damp of the bathroom. It was a veritable bazaar of the repugnant substances he needed. Plenty of variety and material to select from. Disgusting, honestly. But beggars can’t be choosers.

After an unusual amount of bathroom breaks that had most of his classmates raising eyebrows, Cillian had managed to fill his school bag to the quarter mark and had stashed his textbooks away in his locker, safe from the filth of his newly created portable petri dish. He added some fuel in the form of his lunch for the day and let his green friends propagate in his bag, willing the decomposition to speed up. For the fungus to grow and spread…. For his school bag to fill with mould…..

It was all a bit ridiculous when he stopped to think about it.

Honestly, why did he have to get landed with the most disgusting power imaginable. He couldn’t get super-strength or irresistible charm? No. Of course he was stuck with bacteria and fungi.

The rest of his day had been spent in a paranoia fuelled haze; time somehow both advancing too quickly but also moving at a snail’s pace. Sometime the clock’s hands would barely seem to move, then he’d blink and an hour would have passed.

His Dad had definitely noticed something was up. Niall Brady wasn’t exactly a people-person but he knew his sons like the back of his hand. He had launched a veritable barrage of not-so-subtle questions in the direction of Cillian and Colm for the entire evening, trying to ascertain the source of the tension resting between the two siblings. Neither of them had said much in response. Colm might have been furious with his elder brother, but he wasn’t a rat. They were united in that.

Eventually Mom had gotten home and Dad had left to take her place at the rig, the two exchanging a few tired but loving words in the few moments they had to spare. Thankfully Sarah had been exhausted past the point of managing a decent conversation with her sons. Cillian had gathered muttered snippets about a massive drug bust against the Merchants and a fight with Mush. Cillian doubted that his mother was even conscious enough to realise that there was a rift between her sons or that he was acting weirdly. It would make for an easier time sneaking out at least. You’d have an easier time waking the dead than you would rousing Sarah Brady from one of her power induced slumbers.

Night had finally fallen and the house had grown silent. Every creak of a wooden floorboard and each gust of wind had sent his nerves into turmoil, shooting white hot spikes of adrenaline through every inch of his circulatory system. He was scared and he hadn’t even begun yet! He really wasn’t cut out for all this skulduggery, truth be told. However in time honoured tradition, he had eventually crawled out of his window and descended from the second story of the house, holding onto whatever precarious foot and hand holds he could find. He barely even stumbled when he hit the ground. Truly, he was grace incarnate. He just had his backpack with him. That’s all he needed. Mould, zip ties and his phone. A recipe for a successful night of crime fighting. Or was this vigilantism? He didn’t care much either way

That’s how he found himself here, tucked away behind some bushes, just a few blocks away from his objective. Cillian wished he had some grand plan. He honestly did. A daring strike to topple the empire in a single stroke. To crush Kaiser and to free the Bay of Nazis forever. Maybe he could even charm Rune and convince her to stop being such a bigot too. She seemed pretty cute… dogmatic racism and perpetual sneer aside. God, he really needed to focus.

The actual plan was much more humble. Capes scared the shit out of him and he wasn’t going near them if at all possible. He was going to return to that alleyway where he saw the beating earlier. There were always empire thugs lurking nearby on the lookout for an ABB push. He was going to try to get a grip on his powers and beat up some gangsters. With the aim of getting them arrested, of course. Short and simple. Nothing could go wrong. Okay that was a lie but maybe then they’d get the message to not bother kids on their way to school. He wondered if he should talk to the gangsters and let them know why he was doing this? No wait they’d be unconscious. A calling card maybe? Shit, did his voice even sound heroic? Did he need a cape voice?

Shaking his head free of his wandering thoughts, Cillian began to work. He unzipped his bag and went to work with gusto. He started with a mask, of course. Blasto apparently relied on fake faces made out of fungi to sneak around. Cillian could at least make a mask surely.

Despite his confidence it took longer than he expected to get the design quite right. To clump the cells together in the exact way he wanted. To get the colour correct. To get the material the way he pictured in his mind. Though, he was fussy in that way. He found it far easier to achieve a singular goal or purpose, he had never tried to achieve multiple simultaneously. He was getting the hang of it though. Slowly but surely.

The end result was a grand thing, he reckoned. It was golden in appearance and tough to the touch with a consistency like that of tree bark on the outside. The design was a simple one overall, resembling an ornate funeral mask more than anything else, now that he thought about it. It bore strong features that little resembled his own boyish ones. Stern. Harsh. Authoritative. A hero…. Or maybe a vigilante at least. It did seem pretty intimidating in retrospect. The mask was also lined with deep grooves, each inlined with a myriad of Ogham symbols. He figured he could show off some of his heritage while adding some mystery to his appearance after all. It’s not like anyone would recognise the symbols in the entire city. Hell, they were still pretty obscure back in Ireland. He doubted anyone was going to put two and two together and miraculously extrapolate his identity from them.

He didn’t have much material left to work with after the mask, his bag was nearly empty. It had taken him a few more tries than he had expected to get the mask right.

Thankfully, he didn’t need much material for what came next. He urged the cells of fungi together, altering them from common bathroom mould into three spherical balls that resembled water balloons in their properties if not in their mushroomy appearance or texture. Three airtight balls that would burst when thrown. Three balls that he had filled with a unique strain of bacteria he had crafted earlier that day. With a small smirk on his face, he commanded his creations to multiply, and he couldn’t help but feel a swelling of pride as they did so at a monstrous rate from within his containers.

It was time to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had planned to include the fight in this chapter but I wasn't quite happy with how some things read, especially considering how pivotal it is in the story. It nearly doubled the length of this already chonky chapter as well, so maybe it's for the best. Should be able to get it out tomorrow though after some minor rewrites.
> 
> [Vaguely](https://imgur.com/0Mjo6jI) what the mask looks like, if anyone needs a visual representation.


	4. Inoculation 1.4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is no 'Now' section for this chapter as it was meant to be included with the last but grew overly large. I experimented with a few things but I decided to keep with my original plan to avoid messing up the structuring. You'll have to wait until the next post to see future Cillian/ The Archimandrite I'm afraid. But judging by how quickly I'm tearing through these updates that should only be a day or two.
> 
> This section came in alone at about 4.5k words and I'm honestly pretty pleased with how it turned out.

**Chapter 4 - Inoculation 1.4**  
  
 **Then**  
  
Fashion, he reckoned, was not his strong suit. Once he had clasped the mask on, he found it to look regal. Intimidating. Mysterious. Well, if his phone’s front camera was to be believed anyways. He did look rather fetching in the reflection of a nearby car window.  
  
The problem lay in the rest of his attire, he hadn’t really given it much thought beyond what were the most durable clothes he owned. A pair of jeans and a leather jacket were his answers. Jeans were invented for miners and bikers wore leather jackets, right? Or they did in those old Earth Aleph movies his Dad loved to watch. That had to be worth something. The combination didn’t look too intimidating though, truth be told.  
  
His self-assurances of ‘all heroes have to start somewhere’ and ‘you probably look pretty cool’ were gradually drowned out by the fear that the gangsters would just take one look at him and burst out laughing. What if they realised he was just some schoolkid playing at being a cape. That would nearly be worse than getting stabbed or beaten. Nearly, but not quite. Wounded pride heals with time, but broken teeth never do.  
  
A few minutes of gathering every tattered shred of self-conviction he had left and he was finally ready to move. His nerves had been steeled, mostly. Cillian kept to the backstreets and alleyways predominately. This was still Empire turf and was warranted to be patrolled in some form or another, even at night. The last thing he needed was to be jumped unexpectedly by a bunch of goons travelling the main roads in a patrol car. The element of surprise was going to be vital in his success tonight.  
  


Twelve minutes later and he had arrived at his destination. He had found a hiding spot in the form of a corroded trash can with a smell so pungent that it made his eyes water. The aroma aside, hiding behind it provided him with a good overview of the blasted alleyway that started this whole chain of events. He absently realised he could probably just kill the microbes causing the smell, but his focus was elsewhere.  
  
Peering through a gap in the rubbish, he saw his marks at last. Four of them. Empire for sure. The hair (or lack thereof) and attire spoke of that for certain.  
  
It was strange though. Patrols were normally bigger, or so he had heard. Allowed for less chance of being taken out by vigilantes or being overwhelmed by ABB attacks before they could get the alarm out. It was unlikely that there were just four men on their own, all the way out here.  
  
Well. It was what it was and he had come here for a reason. He could get to the rest later or run away if things got heated. He had come here to fight. He was also studiously ignoring the voice in the back of his head that was screaming at him to turn tail and sprint back home to his nice warm bed.  
  
Gritting his teeth, Cillian finally burst into action. Grabbing one of his fungal balloons, he pulled his arm back and let loose a mighty throw, aiming for the baldie on the rightmost side. He watched his payload soar magnificently through the air, rocketing across the street and into the alley…. It was too high. It was way, way too high. He watched with rising horror as it splattered harmlessly against the reddish brick wall of the backstreet and deposited its charge of germs far too high in the air to be any good to him.  
  
Cillian had a split second to crouch behind his pungent hiding place again before they caught sight of him. His blood was pounding in his ears. His heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. Had they seen him? Would they have heard the impact? If he looked again would he see a horde of furious skinheads crossing the street to cave his skull in? He risked a glance.  
  
The sound of hushed voices rose from across the street.  
  
"You hear that?" one of the thugs asked, turning to his compatriots, metal teeth glinting in the lamp light.  
  
"Hear what?" the square-jawed block of a man replied. He was the one on the far right. The one Cillian had been aiming for. Fucking hell, the man was a cinderblock in human form.  
  
"You know, a squishy sound?" the Goldentooth replied, his eyes darting around the alley and across the street. Desperately trying to ascertain the source of the mysterious squelch.  
  
Cinderblock scratched at his cheek for a moment, his eyes lazily sweeping around the alley "I didn’t hear shit. You take something tonight? You’ve been jumpy since we got out here."  
  
Goldentooth wheeled around, his anger evident in his hunched shoulders and his raised finger that jabbed in Cinderblock’s direction furiously, as if to punctuate every point he made. "No I’m not on drugs you idiot! You heard the boss. The ABB have been quiet the last few weeks. They’re up to something big and I’m not gonna be caught with my pants down! You ain’t heard what the Oni does to captives?”  
  
Cinderblock snorted in response, clearly impervious to his compatriot’s dramatics. “So that’s why the ABB have been quiet for the last 15 days. To make us paranoid about a squishing sound at 2 in the morning. Who would have though-”  
  
Another spoke up. This one was gaunt, frail. His cheeks sunken and hollow. Cillian would have placed him as a meth user but his eyes were razor-sharp. And they were staring directly at him. "We’ve got a visitor boys, quit your hollerin’. "  
  
The adrenaline spiked through his system, white-hot and driving him to action. Cillian didn’t think. He didn’t even take a second to strategize or formulate a plan of attack. He burst out of cover, hurling his remaining two balloons in rapid succession. These two found their mark, the first splattered into Cinderblock’s meaty jawline, the other into Goldentooth’s chest, depositing their imperceptible payloads exactly where Cillian wanted them.  
  
He was met with looks of confusion from the thugs as nothing happened immediately. Gaunt spoke up, clearly the de facto leader of this band of miscreants. "All of ya, back into the alley. You know the drill. Mike, start calling this in. We’ve got ourselves a wannabe cape on our hands."  
  
Shit, backup was not something Cillian wanted to deal with. He sprinted across the street, desperately honing in on his power. Focusing on the germs he had released.  
  
 _Propagate._  
  
He was on the asphalt now. No cars. Wouldn’t do to end up as roadkill.  
  
 _Multiply._  
  
Cillian was more than half way there now. His shoes pounding furiously into the road below. The thugs were backing into the alleyway. Maybe trying to limit his movement? It’d make sense against Movers, he guessed. Or numerically superior foes. One was desperately reaching for his phone, hampered by his simultaneous efforts to call for help and to watch for any more flying satchels.  
  
 _Proliferate._  
  
He wondered briefly, if he had fucked it. That first throw could have ruined it all. He might not have enough material. They were meant to be unconscious by now.  
  
 _Breed._  
  
Cinderblock turned and puked, heaving the contents of his stomach out into the alleyway in a red-tinged avalanche of detritus and half-digested food. It had begun.  
  
Then he was on them, snatching a stretch of metal pipe from Cinderblock’s weakened grip. Cillian narrowly dodged a retaliatory blow from the fourth thug, a steel wrench whistling through his hair. Mike was his name. All thoughts of calling for help overridden by self-interest by the looks of it.  
  
He saw Goldentooth sink to his knees from the corner of his eyes. Cillian spotted Mike’s eyes twitch in his comrade’s direction for just a moment. A moment was all Cillian needed. The steel pipe came around in a furious swing, connecting with the gangster’s temple with the sickening crack of something osseous breaking.  
  
That could have killed him.  
  
No time to dwell on it. Cinderblock was making moves, recovered somewhat from his vomiting spell. Cillian dodged a meaty fist thrown in his direction, suddenly glad for the years of martial arts his father made him attend. The thug was struggling, that much was clear. His face was lined with sweat, his skin the colour of parchment. A sickly yellow-white. A hand clasped desperately to his stomach and a trail of red coloured vomit running down his chin spoke to the extent of his ailing health.  
  
Fucking hell, if the man could throw punches of this power even while crippled, Cillian did not want to see him at his peak. The bastard deserved an honorary brute rating.  
  
Another punch went wide as Cillian ducked underneath it, bringing the pipe down in a crushing blow on the gangster’s knee. Nothing broke this time and he had to jump back to avoid yet another hammerfist swing.  
  
No need to rush. He’d win with time. A battle of endurance was the best case scenario. Humans couldn’t combat his diseases. Not without help. It doesn’t matter how tall or strong or tough you were. You couldn’t punch a virus. Goldentooth was on his hands and knees, crippled. Mike had a fractured skull in all likelihood. Maybe some mild brain damage too. Cillian managed a wince at the thought. Cinderblock was ailing rapidly. Still able to fight somehow but the disease was winning their battle. Another few seconds and he’d be down too, his airways obstructed and inflamed, his flow of oxygen cut off.  
  
He spotted Gaunt, further down the alleyway. Was he trying to flee? He didn’t have a phone in his hand so he wasn’t calling for help.  
  
Cillian was brought back to his senses by Cinderblock beginning to scratch at his throat, a horrible wheezing sound filling the alleyway. His chest was heaving, his lungs desperately searching for the oxygen that wouldn’t arrive. The mountain of a man had lasted a long time, Cillian had to grudgingly admit. The teen swung his metal pipe into the lower torso of the giant, just below the ribcage where the unprotected flesh began. Liver shots would drop anyone, especially when one was desperately gasping for air, entirely unfocused on protecting their vulnerable body. The thug fell with a resounding crash, hitting off a nearby wall before impacting the ground, hard.  
  
Just one left then.  
  
Cillian strode towards Gaunt, dispatching Goldentooth completely on the way with a crack of steel to the back of his skull. Not an ounce of heroism apparent.  
  
Was it always like this? Behind the costumes, the glamour and the media? Did it just come down to crippling other people?  
  
Gaunt had a knife out now and a grim set to his mouth. The blade glinted in the half light, twelve inches long and wickedly serrated on one side. A blade made for cutting flesh and spearing organs. Cillian didn’t like the look of that one bit. That was the face of a man who was ready to kill. Cillian had seen that face before.  
  
He tried to sound heroic, like Armsmaster or Legend. Effortlessly commanding. Though they had years of reputation and experience behind those voices and Cillian just had fear behind his. Deepening his tone and speaking with all the force he could muster, he barked an order at the last thug standing "Drop the knife and surrender. I promise no harm will come to you."  
  
Well fuck, that was cheesy. Didn’t sound half bad though.  
  
Besides, he didn’t need Gaunt to surrender. He’d win in time, if he could just keep him busy while his microbes went to work. The man was already pale and Cillian spotted a shake to his hands. The fever had set in then.  
  
The only response he got was the knife spearing towards his gut.  
  
Cillian dodged it. Not gracefully. He threw himself backwards, nearly slipping on the pile of vomit left by Cinderblock earlier, barely catching his balance. He had lost his pipe in the effort, falling from his hand as he struggled to right himself. But he dodged the blade and that’s all that mattered.  
  
He could see the next strike coming from a mile away. Nature was catching up to Gaunt. Slowing his movements and wrecking his body.  
  
Gaunt went high and Cillian went low, the blade whistling overhead as he thrust his shoulder into the scrawny man’s stomach in a textbook rugby tackle. He felt the breath leave the gangster in a _whoosh_ of air as his legs buckled. They landed hard, the knife clattering away on the stone somewhere far from reach. Cillian brought his fist up and began hammering down. Once, twice, three times, four times, then he shakily stood up. There was blood on his fist. He had felt some teeth come loose. Gaunt wasn’t a pretty man to begin with. This hadn’t done much to improve his sunken looks. He didn’t think a cheekbone was meant to sag inwards like that.  
  
Cillian turned to the other victims of his attack. None of them were in good shape. He felt the gorge rising to the back of his throat as he went to them one by one, dispelling any trace of the disease in their system and the air. He zip-tied their hands and feet as he went. The disease would have been lethal after 30 minutes or so of exposure. It was risky, he knew. But he needed something that could incapacitate quickly and that meant some nasty side-effects. He couldn’t heal people of diseases at range, he had to touch them. Yet he could manipulate microbes normally for…. Well, he didn’t know his range. Wasn’t sure he wanted to know it. He had always put it down to the Manton effect. Can’t fuck with people’s bodies or whatever, right? His thoughts were rambling again. He did this when he was trying to distract himself. He alway-  
  
"What the fuck?"  
  
Cillian froze. Another one, he had just come around the corner and had seen Cinderblock all beaten and tied up. The new bastard wasn’t even ten steps away.  
  
They both stood there, frozen for a moment. Then another one strode around the corner into the alleyway. Cillian’s mouth went as sour as old beer as their eyes met. Was this what Gaunt had been waiting for? Another two enemies. Fresh. Cillian hadn’t even his bacteria to call on. He had dispelled it all. He was fucked.  
  
Time stood frozen for a moment as they stared at each other, shocked.  
  
Then Cillian bolted for the knife on the floor and all hell broke loose.  
  
He snatched it up, sent a prayer up to whatever deity was listening and threw the blade in the direction of the first. Why the fuck did he throw it. He didn’t know how to throw knives.  
  
It worked somehow, miraculously.  
  
Stupid.  
  
"Fuck!" the first shouted. The knife thudded into his stomach and he groaned and stumbled, falling down on his knees. His hands clasped weakly at his wound, coming away slick with blood.  
  
Cillian snatched for the metal pipe he had earlier. He thought he had a grip on it but the other bastard was on him first. They went down hard, Cillian’s head cracking against the brick wall behind him, his vision spinning. Then they were rolling, each trying to gain dominance over the other. Kicking and tearing and punching as they went. His mask had been knocked sideways, he could barely see out of it. Light, dark, light, dark. Over and over until he felt his head hit off something hard. Cillian was on his back now, pinned and with no way to fix it.  
  
They were wrestling then, their grapples were interspersed with curses and hisses and sounds. Not even words, they were like sounds animals made when fighting. Primal growls and strangled cries of pain. The man pulled a hand free and pulled a knife from somewhere and Cillian barely caught his wrist before he drove it home into his chest.  
  
The bastard was pushing down with all his weight, both hands on the knife. Cillian was pushing the other way, both hands on his wrists, pressing with all the might he could muster in the other direction. A futile effort. It wasn’t enough. The bastard was bigger, more muscular and had gravity on his side. The blade was coming down slowly, down towards Cillian’s face. Maybe his throat. He was staring at it cross-eyed. A fang of sharp metal, just a few inches from his face.  
  
"Die, you cape fuck!" and it came down another inch. His breath stank. Smelled of rotting meat.  
  
Cillian’s shoulders, his arms, his hands were burning, running out of strength. Muscles he didn’t even know he had were on fire. Cillian stared up at the bastard’s face. An overgrown blonde beard, yellowing teeth, a huge spot on his broken bent nose, matted hair hanging down around it. The point of the blade nudged closer. Cillian was dead, no two ways about it. Desperately he cried out "No no no wait. Stop! Stop!"  
  
The blade came down another inch, the nazi grunted, words and flecks of spit flying from gritted teeth and straining muscles. "You brought this on yourself Cape. You don’t fuck with the Empire."  
  
God the bastard’s breath stank.  
  
Just another corpse floating in the bay. Mom was going to be upset. He wondered if they’d find his corpse at all.  
  
God his breath fucking stank.  
  
His breath stank.  
  
Bacteria.  
  
With a herculean feat of strength, Cillian pushed the blade away. Just another inch or two. It bought him time, though not much.  
  
 _Propagate._  
  
Spit and sweat dripped down from the bastard’s face, landing wetly on his forehead.  
  
 _Multiply._  
  
The blade glinted in the lamplight.  
  
 _Proliferate._  
  
He could feel the bacteria spreading throughout the bastard’s body. Too quickly for his immune system to have any effect.  
  
 _Breed._  
  
The knife edged closer, scraping his cheek now. Drawing blood.  
  
Pain. White hot.  
  
It was time.  
  
A word entered his mind. An image. A snatch of paradise, of perfection.  
  
Bubonis.  
  
 _Alter_.  
  
Every single cell of bacteria that he had spread changed in an instant. It was throughout his entire bloodstream now. His white blood cells didn’t stand a chance. He didn’t stand a chance.  
  
Cillian felt the blade go limp almost instantly and he shoved the bastard off of him, heaving in great ragged gasps of breath as he scrambled away on his hands and knees before desperately rising to his feet. Sweat poured down his face in rivulets, his mask had come off in the fighting. He hadn’t even realised. He searched for it desperately, clasping it to his face once more. Safe. He was safe again.  
  
He stood there for a minute. Just breathing. Realising he was alive. That somehow, he had survived.  
  
Then the sound came back, flooding his eardrums. Groaning from the top of the alleyway, crying from the bottom. He looked up. The man with the knife wound was deathly pale. He had lost blood. Probably too much. Groaning and pawing at his knife wound.  
  
Cillian’s mind went blank.  
  
Dad couldn’t get here in time to fix that. Hell, even Velocity might not make it in time and he wasn’t on duty. He had been taken out in that fight against the Merchants earlier. Some trap had gotten him. He could call it in, maybe get New Wave here on time.  
  
He took out his phone in trembling hands.  
  
But then they’d see his power. He couldn’t let them see his power.  
  
The crying was worse though.  
  
Cillian didn’t want to turn.  
  
Didn’t want to see what he had done.  
  
He turned anyways.  
  
Then he was sick, dry heaving against the brick walls. Nothing emerging from his empty stomach.  
  
Glimpses of boils. Of necrosis. Of gangrene and blood. He stumbled over, kicking the knife away and desperately dispelling the disease from the body and any particles that had gone airborne.  
  
He nearly vomited again when he touched the body a second time.  
  
It was far too late for the man. His body was in tatters. Toxins had crippled the immune system, tearing through the soon-to-be-corpse’s macrophages and other defensive measures. His lymph nodes were ruined. His blood stream was toxic with decay.  
  
The Black Death on steroids. Weaponised.  
  
His power was evil.  
  
His power had done this.  
  
 _He_ had done this.  
  
The bastard’s broken body finally gave out with one last rasping breath.  
  
He was a Nazi. He deserved this.  
  
Did anybody really deserve this?  
  
Cillian was sick again.  
  
Memories threatened to resurge.  
  
An empty grave.  
  
Sirens rang out in the distance.  
  
Were they coming for him?  
  
Did he care?  
  
The fear told him that he did.  
  
He had killed a man. Probably two.  
  
Was it even self-defence? He picked this fight. Nobody came after him. Nobody forced him to come to this alleyway  
  
They couldn’t find out about his power. Nobody could. Not the extent of it. There’d be a kill-order with his name on it within a day. Bacteria was naturally self-replicating. Bio-tinkers rarely had a happy ending.  
  
You just had to be realistic about these things.  
  
He set his bacteria to work on the corpse. His own vomit too. Can’t leave evidence. Bones wouldn’t tell any tales.  
  
 _Propagate. Multiply._ _Proliferate. Breed._  
  
The smell was atrocious.  
  
Cillian looked towards the one with the knife lodged in his stomach. He had stopped thrashing and writhing. Cillian could still see his chest rising and falling, barely perceptible.  
  
He should finish him off. Bones tell no tales.  
  
You just had to be realistic about these things.  
  
Cillian ran instead. Ran for all that he was worth.  
  
He forgot about his bag until he was half way home.  
  
He didn’t go back for it.  
  
He tossed his mask in a bush somewhere along the way. He barely recalled doing it.  
  
He was home.  
  
He made far more noise on his way in than he did sneaking out earlier. Feet and hands desperately scrabbling for leverage. He just needed to get inside.  
  
He sat on the edge of his bed then, for who knows how long.  
  
He was filthy. He smelled of vomit and dirt and blood.  
  
He didn’t care.  
  
There was a gentle knock on the door.  
  
Cillian froze, his blood turning to ice.  
  
Colm’s voice then. Gentle. Tender. "You okay in there Cillian? I heard crying."  
  
He was crying, he realised. Tears were running down his face unimpeded. He hadn’t even noticed.  
  
He managed to croak out a reply, his voice taut with emotion. "Uh yeah, Colm. I’m fine." He had to pause to blow snot away from his nose. "Fine. Just memories. Go back to bed. I’ll be alright." He didn’t sound convincing. Not even to himself.  
  
He felt bad for lying, but what was the alternative?  
  
There was a pause that stretched silently for a few minutes.  
  
"You can talk to me you know?" his younger brother replied, his voice earnest. "I don’t remember it as well as you guys. I was still pretty young, but I know enough. I remember what it was like. How we got our powers. I know it wasn’t your fault."  
  
He was wrong of course. It was his fault.  
  
It helped calm him regardless.  
  
He took a second or two to compose himself before speaking again, his voice stronger this time "I’ll be fine bud. Thanks though. Really. Go get some sleep."  
  
There was another pause, longer again this time as Colm battled with the decision to leave him be or insist on helping. Cillian was suddenly more thankful than ever that they had locks on their bedroom doors. He could bullshit away the crying but how would he explain his tattered clothes and cut face.  
  
Hell, how was he going to explain that?  
  
Eventually he heard a soft "Night then Cillian. Love you." and the gentle sounds of footsteps walking down the carpeted hall.  
  
He waited another few moments before stripping from his ruined clothes and shrugging on an old t-shirt. It had Hero’s symbol on it. Fittingly ironic, Cillian reckoned.  
  
He went to shove his tattered jacket and jeans into his jeans but remembered his phone. He’d need to charge it before school tomorrow.  
  
His fingers found empty pockets and bile rose in his throat.  
  
He couldn’t find his phone.  
  
He took a moment, desperately sorting through his frenzied memories of the night.  
  
He had taken it out. He had been about to call New Wave.  
  
He didn’t remember putting it back in his pocket.  
  
He clenched his fists, knuckles white and fingernails piercing his skin.  
  
He had left his phone in the alleyway. With the bodies.  
  
God.  
  
He was fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it! The stakes get ramped up a notch and the fic begins in earnest. Brownie points to whoever can guess what happens next.
> 
> This was the first action scene I've ever written so if any of you have feedback I would be very very glad to hear it.
> 
> This is also my first fic/work of fiction in general, so again, any feedback at all is always welcome. I want to improve.
> 
> As a side note; I'm aware that Cillian is not thinking rationally but that's part of what makes him human. Look no further than Taylor herself in canon. I don't think I've ever seen a less reliable narrator and that's part of why we love her. He probably would have been better off calling his father or New Wave but fear is a terrible shackle at times, especially for young teens who are full of repressed trauma.
> 
> The knife fight/wrestle on the ground was party inspired by [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSRr7wUjLxw&ab_channel=BlackViewHD) scene in Saving Private Ryan. It's not 1:1 by any means but few scenes in a movie have stuck with me as much as that one. Hope I did it justice and conveyed the desperation well


	5. Inoculation 1.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To prevent confusion; The 'Now' sections of the story are all in chronological order but don't necessarily happen directly after each other. Events happen in between that will be fleshed out later in the story.
> 
> I also received plenty of advice about grammar and formatting. I've edited all previously published chapters so they should be somewhat more readable now. Thanks for all the help!

**Chapter 5 - Inoculation 1.5**  
  
 **Now**  
  
The Archimandrite stared down at the corpse, lying on its side. The man who had attempted to kill him. He would join a hallowed list alongside the many other good men that had tried.  
  
The back of his skull was a caved-in mass of red splinters. His body was torn asunder, limbs missing and organs butchered. This one had proven resistant to the Prophetess’ gifts but to his own misfortune, had not proven quite so resistant to more conventional means of murder. It had taken a lot to put him down and the Archimandrite couldn’t have done it alone. Poisons, diseases, parasites and bodies had been thrown at the hero in countless waves before he had eventually succumbed.  
  
He had been a brave man. Full of courage and heroism.  
  
His suit was rust-red and stained with the lifeblood of its owner. It bore a silver shield on the centre.  
  
The Archimandrite recognised that shield.  
  
Memories threatened to resurge.  
  
That shield had meant something to him once.  
  
A friend?  
  
Then the thoughts were gone and he was walking through a field of the damned.  
  
The Archimandrite wasn’t sure how many corpses he had created since he started on this path. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Millions? Undoubtedly he would create many more.  
  
Perhaps it would be better to let one of these heroes kill him, if he could yet still be killed. To let them end it all. To stop the suffering he would cause. Surely there was another way than the Path? Another way to prevent the destruction of all.  
  
Could he take that chance?  
  
He turned, his corroded metal boots squelching in the blood-soaked morass and stared across the valley between the tree trunks. The mist was finally starting to clear, slowly revealing a field of broken machinery, of broken gear, of broken bodies. All the ugly detritus of a terrible defeat. Or a terrible victory, if you stood with the Archimandrite  
  
Flies buzzed in legions around the bodies. Birds and scavengers of a hundred species hopped and flapped and pecked at the unexpected feast. Even here, high up on the ridge, it was starting to reek.  
.  
A few feet away he watched a man hobbling desperately towards a strand of trees in the distance, as if they would offer him safety. A PRT soldier maybe, judging by his tattered uniform and shattered armor. Creatures followed him, snarling and yipping and howling in anticipation. Each one was a vector of powerful plagues, their jaws pink with scurvy and their eyes half-closed from the close press of sores and blisters. He knew that the creatures were enjoying this. It was what they were made for, after all.  
  
The first monster leapt but misjudged its trajectory. It caught the soldier on the way back however, knocking him into the mass of flesh and bile that followed behind. The Archimandrite knew that he should be horrified as he watched the helpless man be ripped limb from limb, but he only felt a guilty gladness. Glad that it wasn’t him below being mauled. Glad that the Plan was working, despite the costs. Glad that this wouldn’t all be for nothing. There were other figures, other monsters, other humans, moving on the slopes and flats of the valley below. A hundred other bloody little dramas, but the Archimandrite watched no more.  
  
In the distance, Trisagion roared in exaltation, shattering earth and dispelling clouds.  
  
He turned his eyes to his destination.  
  
To the prize that this battle was fought for.  
  
To _Home._  
  
  
  
  
 **Then**  
  
Life, Cillian reckoned, had a certain serene quality to it when you knew it had all gone to shit. Where everything ceases to matter because you know you’ve played your cards wrong and all that’s left is for the dealer to call your bluff. That’s when the chips are collected and debts need to be paid.  
  
But his bluff hadn’t been called yet, so what was he going to do about it?  
  
Not much, as it turned out.  
  
He sighed as the steaming water of the shower seeped into his pores and stripped the fatigue from his muscles.  
  
How long had he sat there at the edge of his bed? Agonizing on whether he should return to the alleyway. To desperately search for his phone before anyone else could reach it. To fight off whoever was there, regardless of the consequences.  
  
His brain had invented a twisted lattice of ‘ _what if’s_ ’ that had frozen him to inaction instead. Each potential scenario was increasingly unlikely yet somehow more terrible than the one that came before. What if his father had been called to the scene? What if New Wave stumbled across it? What if the Empire had become alarmed at their patrol not calling in and had responded in force? Were they coming to his house right now in revenge? Did Director Piggot already have his kill order signed? Were the Triumvirate already on their way to put him down?  
  
By the time he had worked up the courage to do anything, dawn’s rays had already begun spearing through his curtains. The city was beginning to awaken. He had waited too long.  
  
Funny that he had only found his courage once he knew that the option was closed to him.  
  
Coward.  
  
He shut off the water and dejectedly let his head slump against the damp slicked tiles of the shower wall.  
  
He couldn’t help but let out a bitter chuckle to himself “The gallows await, no point in moping.”  
  
He ignored his razor and reflection for the day.  
  
He dressed himself (A jumper and jeans. They made him look like a good lad. Naive and foolish. He’d need whatever advantage he could get.), made his bed (carefully, so his mother wouldn’t be forced to do it if he disappeared), went to grab his schoolbag (but forgot that he had lost it the night before) and trudged down the stairs.  
  
  
  
  
His Dad was waiting for him as per usual. He had bags under his eyes and lines grooved deep into his face from years of stress. Was that frown from tiredness or from knowing what Cillian had done last night?  
  
He spoke up then, Cillian’s heart lurching at hearing the tone. That was _Shepherd's_ voice. Gravelly and deadly serious with the weight of absolute authority behind it. The voice that had personified every single one of his childhood fuck-ups.  
  
This was far worse than a childhood fuck up.  
  
“Son, why don’t you grab a seat? I imagine you know that we have a lot to talk about,” his father intoned, his face stern as he pointed to the chair opposite him. The words implied a question but the tone brooked no argument. Cold iron, unbending.  
  
Cillian’s eyes darted around the kitchen, desperately searching for some way to wheedle himself out of this one. His mother was still asleep. Colm was probably at the PHQ already. He went every Friday morning for analysis to try and get that power of his under control.  
  
“I uh- I actually have to get to school early today so I’l-”  
  
“Cillian…” his father warned  
  
“Big project and all that, you know how it is with scho-”  
  
“I can smell your bullshit from a mile away. Sit down, son.”  
  
Cillian sat.  
  
His foot immediately began tapping on the floor like a rabbit’s, announcing his nerves to the world. He glanced down at it forlornly. Even his own body was betraying him.  
  
“You do realise,” his father continued icily, “that we have alarms and cameras at every entrance to our house.”  
  
Cillian hadn’t.  
  
“Courtesy of my dear _friend_ Armsmaster.” The sarcasm in the word friend was palpable, but the message behind it wasn’t.  
  
“I thought he did weapons and stuff,” Cillian spluttered out in protest.  
  
The sound of a hand slapping a forehead was audible. “Miniaturization and efficiency are his specialty, Cillian!”  
  
Shepherd took a moment to get his frustration under control, taking a deep breath before continuing. “He uses that for a lot of things. Weapons, programs, armor. He has also provided every Cape on the force with a set of near undetectable alarms and cameras to safeguard their house with. The unwritten rules protect our civilian lives but you can never be too careful. Remember that,”  
  
A pause lingered in the air for a moment, as if to drill his point home. Then the healer pushed two pieces of flat glossy paper across the table in his direction.  
  
“You can imagine my surprise, then, when I got an alert that our house had been tampered with and that an intruder had been detected. We were scrambling for deployment when these images appeared on the console.”  
  
Cillian glanced down at the paper. They were pictures, two of them. One was of Cillian climbing out of the window with a look of rapturous excitement on his face. The other was of him losing his footing and plummeting the last few feet of his climb, the look of excitement replaced with one of abrupt surprise.  
  
“So, Cillian,” his father continued as grave as ever. “Pray tell, what were you doing sneaking out of the house at three in the morning dressed like that?”  
  
This was it. The gig was up.  
  
“I… uh. I was-”  
  
“Well? I’m waiting, Cillian.”  
  
His father’s eyes were staring directly into his own, cold and blue and all-knowing. Cillian tried to look anywhere else.  
  
He couldn’t escape this one.  
  
His will gave out.  
  
“Well. You see. It was a long story, I can explain. I swea-”  
  
He was interrupted by a great bellowing fit of laughter.  
  
“Oh the look on your face was priceless!”  
  
Shepherd had disappeared. His father was back. He was Niall Brady again, all traces of his cape persona had vanished.  
  
What?  
  
“Oh the fun we had in the command room last night, let me tell you. Assault was wetting himself with laughter when he saw you. Getting all dressed up to meet a girl in the middle of the night.”  
  
Cillian’s mind went blank.  
  
“I couldn’t even find it in myself to be mad, you know? I did the same at your age. Had to sneak out to meet your mother in the dead of night. Her father wasn’t keen on the idea of a Catholic getting their hands on his daughter. You know the type.”  
  
His Dad thought he had gone out to meet a girl.  
  
That meant the Protectorate didn’t have his phone.  
  
They hadn’t found the bodies.  
  
Cillian let out a relieved gurgle of laughter, his worries exhumed from his chest, and all his breath along with them.  
  
His father continued speaking, wiping a tear from his eye as he went. Completely oblivious to the true extent of his son’s relief. “Not that it worked out too well for your grandfather, mind you. A happy marriage and three grandchildren later.”  
  
An amiable silence stretched out for a few moments, a fond smile rising to Niall’s face before slowly settling back into a somewhat stern countenance.  
  
“Though I am disappointed, truth be told. Not by your actions but by your deceit. You promised to be honest with us after what happened back in Belfast. Nothing good can come of secrets, even the small ones. They build up one by one like a house of cards and eventually they all come crashing down around you.”  
  
The silence lingered as his father waited for a reply. This one was far from pleasant. Full of betrayed promises and disappointment. Cillian searched for words but his mind was empty. There was guilt but no way to express it. Not without adding more lies.  
  
Eventually his father sighed before continuing.  
  
“Right Cillian, I’ll cut you a deal. If you keep your grades up and don’t get into any trouble, I’ll stay silent on the matter. I’ve already told the staff at the PHQ to ignore your comings and goings, so we won’t have any PRT vans showing up at the house if they see you gallivanting around. Just for the love of God, let us know where you’re going and when. The city can be dangerous, even for someone like you.”  
  
Cillan’s mind was still empty, and he desperately scrambled for words. None came.  
  
His father continued speaking instead after a rueful chuckle. “Now go on, get to school before I regret my kindness.”  
  
Cillian felt a sudden urge rush into his chest. One that implored him to tell his father everything. To reveal what had actually happened that night. To explain just how badly his first and only night of being a ‘Hero’ had gone. How badly he had fucked everything up. To explain how scared he was.  
  
This was his Dad. This was Shepherd, the man who could heal anybody or fix any problem. The man who dealt with the triage of entire cities. The man who had brought people back from the dead. The man who had taught him how to ride a bike and how to build his first Lego set.  
  
Cillian didn’t say a word, of course.  
  
Coward.  
  
Instead, he plastered a shaky smile on his face, muttered something unintelligible, and made a beeline for the front door as quickly as he could.  
  
His father’s voice stopped him at the threshold. “And Son, please don’t let your mother find out about this. You know she’s like an Endbringer when riled up and we’ll both have hell to pay if she realises what’s been going on.”  
  
Cillian couldn’t help but let out another laugh, a genuine one this time.  
  
“Yeah Dad, will do.”  
  
  
  
  
  
His walk on Friday mornings always felt a bit strange without Colm there for company. His younger sibling could be a little shit at times but they almost always got along well. It wasn’t normally like yesterday. They didn’t usually fight or try to hurt each other. There was only one topic that made their tempers flare. One topic that turned pleasant words into venomous barbs. One argument that made fists fly and noses turn bloody. One damnable problem that made Cillian forget that he loved his younger brother. Heroes.  
  
He wasn’t quite sure when he realised that he was envious of his younger brother but it wasn’t a pleasant revelation. It had plagued him for months, and to be truthful, it still did. Colm was everything that Cillian wasn’t. He was jealous of his courage, of his idealism, of his determination. Cillian was jealous of his heroism most of all.  
  
Colm had a core of gold. That much sought but rarely found quality that made him a genuinely good person. If he saw a kid getting bullied, he’d rather take the punch himself than let it continue. It had happened before and hell, it would probably happen again.  
  
Cillian would just walk straight past, head down.  
  
He always had a myriad of excuses of course, you could always trust him to bullshit himself into taking the easy way out.  
  
This disparity manifested itself the most when it came to their powers. Cillian had lied to himself about being a parahuman for years. He still wished he could but he had gone too far this time. The bodies would attest to that. For years he had kept the existence of his powers buried in the back of his mind; only being reminded of his falsehood on days when he lost control. Days when the information was just too much to keep at bay. Cillian had the weight of millions of lives on his shoulders. One mistake could make graveyards of cities. One mistake could see millions of dead. He cursed the cosmic misfortune that gave him his powers on a daily basis. But he did absolutely nothing to improve the situation. He didn’t try to master his powers or improve the lives of others. He just buried everything and pretended that he was just like everybody else.  
  
Colm was the same as him in many ways. Hell, in others he had it worse. His power was hideous and uncontrollable. He was dangerous when he let it completely loose. He was never going to be the poster boy of the Protectorate. He was never going to be compared to Legend, however much he dreamed of it. Regardless of his status as a hero, people would still fear him. Yet that didn’t matter to him. Every single Friday he spent most of his day at the PHQ undergoing testing and analysis, battling to gain control of his abilities. He was determined to join the Wards. He had been ever since they moved to the Bay. He had befriended the majority of the team and was a member in all but name. Some of them even came over to the house occasionally.  
  
Yet he just couldn’t keep control of his power. It always went wild. It wasn’t safe to put him in a hostile situation, especially around a team of inexperienced youths. They had precautions drawn up for worst-case scenarios; mostly involving Clockblocker and Vista stalling until help could arrive. Those precautions all revolved around the necessity of Colm attaining basic control of his abilities however, and Colm hadn’t managed that despite having had years to do so.  
  
He never gave up though. He never missed a week of practice. Even when he was at his lowest. Even when he was in tears from the frustration or broke three mirrors in a month. He just kept moving forward. He kept walking his path, certain that he’d reach his destination in the end.  
  
Cillian hadn’t even taken the first step.  
  
  
He was eventually snapped from his introspection by the sound of crunching metal, quickly followed by the subsequent blaring of horns that always accompanied a car crash. The morning’s tranquility quickly became a distant memory as the yells and admonishments of two frustrated commuters filled the dawn’s air. A nasty crash by the looks of it. Cillian doubted that much traffic was getting through until the wreckage was cleared up. How two cars had managed to collide in the near-empty early morning roads, he wasn’t entirely sure.  
  
He shook his head, banishing the last remnants of his melancholy thoughts. He was doing that a lot recently, letting his mind ramble. It didn’t do much to help his already frazzled nerves and sour mood.  
  
What was the alternative though, taking in the wondrous sights of the Bay?  
  
Two homeless men were sleeping in the door to a shopfront. An empty bottle of whisky lay between them.  
  
Some litter from a nearby take-away adorned the pavement’s grey. An Italian by the looks of it. It looked tasty, as half-eaten remains went. Was that carbonara?  
  
It was a surprisingly quiet morning, all things considered. Very little foot traffic. Cillian was almost tempted to take the long way around so he could catch a glimpse of the PHQ before he reached Winslow. Its sweeping arches and looming towers never failed to inspire at least a bit of awe. There was something about Tinkertech that never got old. Some vestigial part of the human brain that recognised that _‘this isn’t quite right.’_  
  
He was approaching that dangerous point however, the area where ABB and Empire territory began to merge. He wanted to be through there as quickly as possible, especially before the majority of the Empire’s slack-jawed lackeys rose from their beds. Before they could start watching out for someone that matched his description.  
  
Ideally he’d be able to catch a glimpse of the alley to see what had become of it. Maybe, just maybe, he’d have gotten lucky. Hell, perhaps his phone had just fallen out of his pocket as he ran back home?  
  
He doubted it though.  
  
He was rarely that lucky.  
  
It really was a quiet morning. There was nobody around now, the streets completely devoid of vehicles and pedestrians alike.  
  
Cillian felt a growing worry beginning to gnaw at his chest as he continued to walk.  
  
Where was everybody?  
  
The streets were never this empty. Not this close to rush-hour beginning.  
  
Something was wrong.  
  
He was just about to dart into a nearby alleyway when he saw three figures emerge from it. They were indisputably Empire men. They didn’t look like regular goons though, not like the ones Cillian was used to. Leather jackets and crude tattoos had been replaced by military-style fatigues and jackboots. Steel pipes and steel baseball bats were exchanged for firearms and sheathed combat knives.  
  
Surprisingly, the weapons didn’t bother him.  
  
It was the respirators that got to him. Each one of them was wearing a medical grade respirator on their face, cold eyes staring at him from above the white plastic.  
  
They knew. They had come prepared specifically for his power.  
  
Cillian felt bile rise to the back of his throat.  
  
His power wasn’t neutralized. There were other ways he could infect them. If he modified his bacteria t-  
  
  
The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted his frenzied thoughts and heralded the arrival of more thugs from behind.. A quick glance confirmed his suspicions. Five more of them. Each of them had their hands on a weapon. Matte-black submachine guns by the looks of it. Some distant part of his mind guessed that they were some variant of an MP5.  
  
They were professionals, Cillian could tell. They fanned out with their guns raised, each moving in synchronicity with the man beside him. Seemed more like Coil’s mercenaries than Empire footsoldiers but the insignia stitched to their chest allowed no room for error.  
  
Cillian knew he could win this fight, given time.  
  
Time that he didn’t have.  
  
They had eight weapons levelled at him. The first sign of sickness and they’d riddle him with bullets.  
  
 _Just another corpse floating in the Bay_.  
  
Fighting wasn’t an option. Not yet.  
  
Cillian grunted out a response, managing to keep his voice level despite his sinking stomach and pounding heart. “Seems like a lot of guns for one teenager.”  
  
One of the men responded. He belonged to the group that came from behind. Was he the leader then? A lattice of scars marred his face, twisting it into an ugly, asymmetrical patchwork of skin. His aquiline nose was riddled with bumps and bends that spoke of brutal fights and crunching blows. His eyes unnerved Cillian the most though; deeply set and dark blue. Analytical. Calculating. Cold. The eyes of a killer. If ever a face had screamed ‘danger’, then this was it.  
  
“You can never have enough guns for a cape.” His accent was strange. No hint of an American twang.  
  
Cillian scrambled for an answer..  
  
“A cape? You’ve got the wrong kid. I’m not a Ward or anything like that. Never even stepped foot in the PHQ.”  
  
He was met with a wry chuckle at that. “Oh, we know that you are not a Ward. Now keep moving. I think you know where to go. The boss would like a word.”  
  
Cillian’s blood went cold. He was glad that his hands were in his pockets, they had begun to shake uncontrollably.  
  
He had heard stories of Kaiser, the steel tyrant of the Empire. Stories he did his best not to recall but ones that flooded his mind anyways.  
  
“Please jus-”  
  
A gun prodded him in the back, jarring him forwards and leaving a bruise near his spine.  
  
“I won’t ask you again. Keep moving.”  
  
Cillian’s mind raced as he was marched to his destination. He already knew where it would be. That damned alleyway. He would have to escape before he got there but how? He eyed a trash can as he walked by but another jab of a muzzle sent him stumbling past it. No way to grab material from it now.  
  
He was multiplying the bacteria that was latent on his skin and teeth but that wasn’t enough. Not for eight men.  
  
Not for capes.  
  
His eyes darted around frenzied and desperate. There had to be some way to escape this. Some witnesses would call it in. The Protectorate would arrive any moment to rescue him.  
  
But Cillian’s eyes didn’t lie. There wasn’t even any traffic.  
  
Why was there no traffic?  
  
He could see the alleyway now, looming ominously larger with each step.  
  
Why was nobody going to help him?  
  
He made a break for it, one last desperate grasp for freedom.  
  
The brutal crack of a gun stock to his face put a quick end to his hopes. His vision blurred and his head burst with pain. He could feel a trickle of blood running down his cheek, dripping slowly onto his jumper and the pavement below.  
  
He was going to die.  
  
He was shoved into the alleyway at last. Dark and grimy. The buildings either side seemed to loom closer with each passing breath. Narrower, darker, dirtier. Like they would grind him between their brick-red walls and crush him to a meaty pulp. It was devoid of bodies at least, save for the two shadowed figures standing within.  
  
They were capes, of that there was no doubt.  
  
The one in the back wore a midnight black breastplate over a blood red shirt. His eyes were arrogant, his sneer self-assured. _Victor._ A skill thief.  
  
The other drew the most of his attention though, even as Cillian was shoved onto his knees as if to pay homage before him.  
  
Tall, confident, poised. Completely in control. Hands clasped behind his back in soldierly fashion. His greatcoat, trousers and boots were charcoal grey. His uniform was fully adorned with skulls and other military motifs. A crimson band bedecked his left bicep, loudly proclaiming its bearer's dogma for all to see. He wore a black gasmask above it all, distorting the words that emerged.  
  
It was a kind voice. A kind voice with the barest hint of a German accent.  
  
A killer’s voice shouldn’t be kind.  
  
“Cillian Brady. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there you have it. The Empire capes make their debut. I had to take liberties with Krieg's description as I couldn't find anything concrete despite scouring Worm for any mention of a costume. If anyone can chime in with a canonical appearance, I'll ditch the one I have.
> 
> Also props to whoever can name the dead cape at the beginning of the chapter first.
> 
> Overall, I'm not sure if I'm too happy with this chapter. I rewrote it about three times so I eventually decided to bite the bullet and publish what I had. I might come back and rewrite sections, especially near the end. As always, feedback is appreciated.


End file.
